The Cult of Saint Petroc in Cornwall and Brittany c. 550 to c. 1250

In the twelfth century the relics of an early medieval Cornish saint, Petroc, were stolen from his main foundation at Bodmin (Cornwall), taken to the abbey of Saint-Meen in Brittany, and subsequendy retrieved, partly through the agency of the Angevin king, Henry II and Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter. At least one contemporary chronicler, Roger de Hoveden, recorded the event. In addition, a fully-developed hagiographical narrative, also contemporary with the theft, commemorated and appropriately embellished the incident. Through the lens of this text, the thesis investigates the cult of St Petroc in both Cornwall and Brittany, both before and slightly after the theft. These two regions are associated for much of their history through shared language and a similar geographical and political situation on the periphery of larger political and cultural entities; the cult of this saint, both l>efore and after the theft of relics, illuminates the similarities and dissimilarities in their ecclesiastical, religious, cultural, and political histories. This transmission of St Petroc’s cult, assisted greatly by a network of associated saints and churches, shows on the one hand the homogeneity of Cornish and Breton society. The relics themselves are clearly instrumental in the popularisation of St Petroc’s cult in both Cornwall and Brittany, and were venerated in each area. Yet these relics were probably not responsible for the transmission of this Comish cult to Brittany. On the other hand, the manifestations of St Petroc’s cult are quite different in the two areas under consideration, even in the medieval period. The theft incident usefully contrasts the two areas, and sheds valuable light upon the policies of Henry II, newly in control of the Breton duchy, towards this Continental possession. The theft text, although written securely within the conventions of hagiography, is also clearly intended as a historical account. This blending of genres produces a fascinatingly tangled account of Breton and Cornish intrigue and political manoeuvring.